Martin Lindstrom: one of the world’s 100 most influential people

TIME magazine, arguably one of the world’s most respected publications, announced that brand futurist and author Martin Lindstrom has been selected as one of the world’s 100 most influential people of 2009. The announcement will be made in the global edition of TIME magazine appearing on newsstands May 1st 2009.

As news stories on this topic flow in, they will be added to this news page.

Buyology hits the New York Times best-seller list

Buyology, a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller has hit the world with a storm, hailed by Newsweek as "A page turner" the book has made headlines in all major publications including; the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, USAToday, New York Observer, Sunday Times, Business Week, TIME, Fortune, Forbes, Fast Company and INC. Magazine.

Scroll down to read the latest Buyology press coverage or watch a selection of the recent interviews with Martin Lindstrom on NBC, CBS, ABC, BBC and CNN.

This page is updated on a hourly basis and covers major English speaking publications. Scroll down to browse through the news items or pick from the list of links below to go directly to the one you would like to see.

If you would like to see more articles buy and about Martin Lindstrom since the launch of Buyology, go to the Buyology Articles Archive.

Wall Street Journal: Buyology pressures Ferrari to quit Marlboro barcode logo!

Here’s one for the books. Ferrari racing, for many years emblazoned with Marlboro livery, has succumbed to significant pressure and removed the subliminal and highly controversial bar-code logo from its Formula One cars. As this WSJ article reveals, Lindstrom’s best-seller Buyology played a major role in Ferrari’s decision. Based on the findings from the book, which inexorably linked Ferrari to subliminal cigarette advertising, the European Public Health Commission launched their own investigation, ultimately creating enough pressure to force Phillip Morris and Ferrari to mutually agree to complete removal of the barcode. Now read on...

How to Hype-Proof your Tween: (Could this be the ultimate win/win solution?)

Good Housekeeping. If you’re the parent of kids aged somewhere between 8 and 12, you’re trapped in the mother of all economic nightmares – the Tween non-stop money-go-round. If you’re nodding your head in agreement and resigning yourself to a re-mortgage to finance the next round of “please can I have it...please!”, help, finally, is at hand! Quoted in this extraordinary article by Jeffery Kluger, Lindstrom offers up solutions that will not only make your wallet happy, but might also short-circuit any looming tantrum and let you come out adored and admired. Okay, maybe not adored. Tempting tip you would never have thought of: Procrastination! Now read on...

Perfectly perfect : Almost, kind of, perhaps...

There is a difference between aspiration and perfection. A subtle difference, but enough to radically alter our perception of what is real, what is believable - and what is not. Decades of advertising have attempted to force perfection down our throats. Flawlessly chiseled models. Immaculate babies in their immaculate baby outfits. Unblemished fruit, vegetables...you name it. If it’s on TV or in a tabloid it must be perfect, right? This critical insight by Lindstrom takes aim at a marketing technique that somehow still continues to ignore a simple human truth: people want reality. Perfection is not reality. Sorry. Now read on...

Mind-reading: Marketing’s newest, sexiest tool...

It was always a case of just ask the consumer what they think of you, your brand, your product – and they will tell you. Until about 7 years ago, when Neuroscience technology became available. Then we discovered – thanks to the Buyology research – that close on 85% of our responses to advertising messages springs from the subconscious part of our brains. And the real answers began to emerge. What exactly goes on in our heads when marketing messages penetrate? Slowly but inevitably, neuroscience and Lindstrom’s pioneering methodologies have shown there is way more than we ever suspected. Hannah Kuchler from the Financial Times explains in detail...

Singapore: Lindstrom scoops Asia’s Brand Builder of the Decade Award!

Singapore, July 23, 2010. Asia’s prestigious CMO Organization conferred its highest award on Martin Lindstrom, CEO and Chairman of Lindstrom Company and Chairman of Buyology Inc. in a glittering award ceremony held recently in Singapore. Brand Builder of the Decade Award recognizes leadership and a noteworthy level of competency across all aspects of business marketing management. Beating out some other noteworthy contenders, Lindstrom was cited in particular for achieving excellence in the areas of strategic perspectives, risk management, networking, change agent, and, of course, business acumen. The CMO organization runs and operate virtually with an Advisory Council consisting of members who act as advisors and provide input as and when needed. These are not only the current council members but also professionals who have been with CMO for some 16 years. Based on their input CMO makes decisions in collaboration with an independent jury. The BRAND BUILDER OF THE DECADE AWARD is the most prestigious Award and the highest honor which an individual can receive for his/her contribution. The following competencies were judged: Strategic Perspective Business Goal Management Risk Management Team Orientation and People Management Networking Change Agent Customer Focus Business Acumen Performance Management Achieving Excellence

Now out in Paperback: Buyology updated and brand new Brand Sense!

Buyology has been updated with a whole new chapter on today's economy and its impact on our buying responses. Today, Buyology is every bit the essential read for marketers and consumers, just as it was when first released in 2008. It delivers key insights into what really goes on inside our heads and makes us tick as consumers. Why settle for one when you can also get the updated Brand Sense - Lindstrom's 2005 best-seller. Brand Sense ensures you stay abreast of how and what the world's most successful branding companies do differently - integrating touch, taste, smell, sight and sound into their brand touch-points - with sometimes startling results. Buyology in Paperback Available Here Brand Sense in Paperback Available Here On Buyology: "A page-turner" - Newsweek "Lindstrom dishes up results, alongside a buffet of past research, with clear writing and deft reasoning." - Fast Company "One of the 5 best marketing books - ever!" Wall Street Journal On Brand Sense: "Lindstrom ... has an encyclopedic knowledge of advertising history and an abundance of real-world business experience" - The Washington Post "Martin Lindstrom, one of branding's most original thinkers, reveals how to break out of the two-dimensional rut of sight and sound, and connect emotionally with all five senses. His book provides data and insights that will surprise even the most savvy brand watcher." - Robert A. Eckert, CEO & Chairman, Mattel, Inc.

Times Online: Keep plugging away. The brand is a winner

March 10, 2010 Keep plugging away. The brand is a winner Tories think that the job of changing their party's image is complete. It isn't - and complacency could be fatal Daniel Finkelstein In 1915 the Coca-Cola company decided that it needed to do something about its bottles. The firm's bottlers were complaining. They felt that the straight-sided containers they were using weren't distinctive enough. So Coca-Cola set a challenge to glass manufacturers. Could someone out there come up with a better bottle? Yes, was the answer. The Root Glass Company of Terre Haute, Indiana, proposed the swirling, curved 'contour' bottle. It became, and remains, one of the most recognisable and best-loved brand icons. And Martin Lindstrom, the brand guru and author of the book Buyology, thinks he knows why. The Coca-Cola bottle is, he says, 'smashable'. If you drop the famous Coke bottle on the ground, and it smashes into a hundred pieces, you would be able to pick up just one of them and still recognise what it is. Lindstrom lists some other brands of which the same is true. A bit of a Harley-Davidson, a scrap of an iPod, a drop of Guinness, Lego. These brands are all smashable. But the Conservatives? I suspect there's only one sense in which anyone thinks they are smashable, and it's not Lindstrom's. A smashable brand is consistent, the same through and through. Its values guide every part of the design, its identifying features suffuse everything, there isn't a detail that is left out, that isn't true to the whole. And all appeal to the emotions. One study, using brain scans, shows that smashable brands light up the same part of the brain as religious imagery. These brands share something else. Their owners understand that there is much more to their appeal than one simple function, however good that function might be. In fact consumers purchase the product as much for what it says about them, and how it makes them feel, as for what it does. The product is much more than functional, it is part of their identity. You can divide the last five years, or even fifteen years, in politics into two sorts of period. You can divide it into the periods when the Conservatives have remembered and cared about their brand and the periods when they haven't. Periods when they have understood the need to build a consistent and coherent picture in voters minds of who they are, and periods when they have doubted the necessity, or have believed the job done, or have chased other goals. And I believe that you can divide the periods in one other way. The periods when they have cared about their brand and been successful, and periods when they haven't cared and have not been successful. Now the election campaign is upon David Cameron's Conservatives, and the polls are closing, and the leadership team has a choice. What sort of period is the next two months going to be? To anyone who doubts this account, I recommend a superb new history of the last decade in Tory politics, published this week. Peter Snowdon's meticulous narrative, Back from the Brink, records the highs and lows of the party both before and after David Cameron captured the leadership. As Snowdon records, one of the events that propelled Mr Cameron into the leader's chair was the presentation to the 2005 Tory conference of opinion research on the Conservative brand. Tory immigration policy garnered significantly less support the moment voters were informed which party supported it. Informing voters that the immigration policy they had just been asked about belonged to Labour made no difference to their support. The brand problem was confined to the Conservatives. The party faithful realised what this meant and chose a leader who might alter perceptions. And in a hectic, but hugely successful, period after David Cameron became leader, his team concentrated on just that task. Everything - policy initiatives with Bob Geldof, photocalls with huskies, being seen out biking, dropping health policies that seemed to favour opting out of the system, shifting Tory attitudes on issues like gay rights - was geared to make the party, and particularly its leader, seem different. These Tories, the message was intended to say, are modern, energetic, determined, tolerant, they listen, they are at ease with today's Britain. They understand that people are fed up with knockabout politics as usual. They support public services, particularly the NHS, they will protect the low-paid and they understand that, as Mr Cameron put it early on, "we're all in this together". The Tories are still living on the capital from this spell. But every so often, they forget. They start thinking they have changed the brand already, that the work has been done. They have self-indulgent little rows, as they did over grammar schools. They coast. They start wondering if they need a retail offer to the public, some big (probably expensive and therefore impossible) initiative. They lose sight of the fact that their best moments (Mr Cameron's speech without notes and his response on expenses, George Osborne's big calls on taxes and debt and spending) have been when they have been reinforcing their new brand. Politicians and pundits alike overestimate the impact that individual policy initiatives have on voters. Focus-group research suggests that most voters don't know what "Whitehall" is or what "hung Parliament" means. The BBC has done research which shows that the term backbencher is lost on those watching its news bulletins. All that gets through is very broad messages about the character of a party, about who it is, about its brand. And this is transmitted in many ways big and small, but particularly through pictures and spontaneous public appearances. The old negatives that dogged the Tories - that they will cut the NHS, get rid of tax credits, favour the rich over the poor, the South over the North - dog them still. They, and particularly David Cameron, have made some progress in persuading people that the party has changed. But not enough. And certainly not enough to stop plugging away at the message. Every day. All the time. Eighty two per cent of people think it is time for a change. Less than half say they will vote Conservative. The voters are out there to give the Tories a landslide, but the party needs to help them over the finish line. They just need to show a bit of (Coca-Cola) bottle.

Wall Street Journal: Ferrari Finds Smoke Without Fire

Tobacco firm's continued sponsorship is worth $100 million to Formula One racing team By RICHARD GILLIS Racing fans got a good look at Ferrari's new Formula One cars in the opening Grand Prix of the 2010 season in Bahrain: In one of the dullest races in recent memory, Fernando Alonso completed 49 laps without incident to take the checkered flag, with teammate Felipe Massa close behind. But as television cameras follow the iconic red cars during this weekend's Australian Grand Prix in Melbourne, few of the sport's millions of viewers around the world will be aware that they are the subjects of a hugely controversial, and expensive, subliminal-advertising campaign. Gaze at the Ferrari cars for long enough, and you'll notice that instead of a brand logo, an anonymous barcode symbol appears behind the drivers' head and on the team's distinctive red overalls. For this, Philip Morris International Inc., manufacturer of the Marlboro cigarette brand, pays Ferrari between $100 million and $130 million in sponsor fees, according to F1 Racing magazine, despite the European Union's ban on tobacco advertising. Marlboro Logo, Then and Now The Marlboro logo used to appear on Ferrari's Formula One car and the distinctive red overalls of its drivers, but after a ban on tobacco advertising, it has now been replaced by a colored barcode paid for by the cigarette maker. The link between the world's most elite auto-racing circuit and the tobacco industry goes back a long way: Marlboro first appeared as a sponsor in Formula One in 1972, with the BRM team, and the marketing budgets of Marlboro and other brands including Lucky Strike, Benson and Hedges and West continued to flowed into the sport throughout the 1990s. The high level of funding from the tobacco industry raised the teams' cost expectations, according to Ross Brawn, principal of the Mercedes F1 team and a former technical director of the Scuderia Ferrari team. Mr. Brawn, whose eponymous team won last year's constructors championship, says the sport is still wrestling with this legacy. "Formula One budgets were cranked up in the past to a very high level, sustained by the tobacco companies," he says. "Of course, Ferrari still has the backing of Philip Morris, but the rest of the teams have had to do without." Mr. Brawn says that the new spending limits coming into place are "vital to the future of Formula One" and that the success of the Brawn GP team last year proved what could be done. "With 300 or 400 people employed at sensible cost it is possible to be competitive without tobacco money," he says. "We're coming down off that high, but I don't think you'll notice the difference in the racing." Martin Lindstrom is a neuro-marketing consultant and author of Buyology, a book based on a three-year, multimillion-dollar research project that exposed 2,000 consumers to branding materials while scanning their brains. He says this research shows that the tobacco industry's investment in Formula One is still reaping rewards, both in terms of their brand image, and in encouraging people to smoke. Ferrari drivers Fernando Alonso and Felipe Massa embrace after finishing first and second in the Bahrain Formula One Grand Prix earlier this month. "I'm endlessly impressed by Marlboro's ability to take the core values of Formula One�sex, speed, innovation, coolness�and apply them to a cigarette brand," says Mr. Lindstrom, a vehement anti-smoker himself. "That is an amazing achievement. Just by showing me a red Ferrari car, much more so than if you show them an advert for cigarette smoking. "On a personal level I hate it, because the evidence is clear that tobacco sponsorship does make people smoke more, and is not just about switching brands, but professionally there is much to recommend. "Even though that sponsorship is no longer legal we carried out experiments just showing a Formula One car, and people immediately craved cigarettes. What Marlboro has done is create a huge number of what I call 'smashable components' to their brand. They are sending indirect, subconscious signals that are talking to the brain without explicitly telling it we are being sold to." Mr. Lindstrom believes his findings have fundamental implications for the sport-sponsorship industry. "Sponsorship works when we are not really aware of the signals that are being sent: The messages get through because our guard is down, not up. A Formula One car passing below me with no logo is an example of this, and as a smoker it creates a craving, Pavlovian effect. When there are no logos around my rational mind tells me I shouldn't crave those things. Without the logo my intuition kicks in and I want to smoke." The tobacco-advertising ban has had a series of unintended consequences, Mr. Lindstrom says. Because firms are unable to use brand logos and conventional channels, the sector was inadvertently liberated from traditional marketing dogma. As a result, cigarette companies are now among the most innovative and sophisticated marketers in the world. Neuro-marketing remains controversial, but the audience for its findings is growing rapidly among the marketing community, says Paul Brennan of design agency Fitch. He says Marlboro's relationship with McLaren and now Ferrari is aimed at "owning the color red," which remains "the holy grail" for many companies seeking to differentiate themselves from competitor brands. Mr. Brennan says we shouldn't regard subliminal advertising as a way of "tricking the consumer into buying something they don't want to," but rather as a more innovative way of promoting a brand. Sponsor logos have become a familiar backdrop to top-class sport around the world, but most are failing to make an impression, according to Mr. Lindstrom's research. "We are bombarded with thousands of direct-marketing messages a day, very few of which we are able to take in, let alone process in to changing buying behavior," he says. "Having a logo on the perimeter board is not worth the money, there has to be a synergy, where the brand becomes synonymous with the sport, and better still, becomes a ritual. "Likewise, rights holders must prove that they are about more than just awareness, which is not as valuable a commodity as it was 20 years ago, when the sponsorship model was built that still applies today." � Richard Gillis is editor of Platform magazine

Fox Business: Sounds Like Money

FOX New York 8th March 2010 What is the most powerful sound in the world? In this recent interview with Martin Lindstrom FOX Business explores the latest land-grab in Advertising - the fight to brand and own generic sounds? Is it possible to own the sound of a sizzling stake or the sound of a ATM machine? You'll be surprised to learn the answer and what it means for brands in the future.

Time/CNN: Now Hear This

Monday March 1, 2010 Now Hear This By Jeffrey Kluger If you're like most people, you're way too smart for advertising. You flip right past newspaper ads, never click on ads online and leave the room during TV commercials. That, at least, is what we tell ourselves. But what we tell ourselves is hooey. Advertising works, which is why, even in hard economic times, Madison Avenue is a $34 billion--a--year business. And if Martin Lindstrom--author of the best seller Buyology and a marketing consultant for FORTUNE 500 companies, including PepsiCo and Disney--is correct, trying to tune this stuff out is about to get a whole lot harder. Lindstrom is a practitioner of neuromarketing research, in which consumers are exposed to ads while hooked up to machines that monitor brain activity, pupil dilation, sweat responses and flickers in facial muscles, all of which are markers of emotion. According to his studies, 83% of all forms of advertising principally engage only one of our senses: sight. Hearing, however, can be just as powerful, though advertisers have taken only limited advantage of it. Historically, ads have relied on jingles and slogans to catch our ear, largely ignoring everyday sounds--a steak sizzling, a baby laughing and other noises our bodies can't help paying attention to. Weave this stuff into an ad campaign, and we may be powerless to resist it. To figure out what most appeals to our ear, Lindstrom wired up his volunteers, then played them recordings of dozens of familiar sounds, from McDonald's ubiquitous "I'm Lovin' It" jingle to birds chirping and cigarettes being lit. The sound that blew the doors off all the rest--both in terms of interest and positive feelings--was a baby giggling. The other high-ranking sounds were less primal but still powerful. The hum of a vibrating cell phone was Lindstrom's second-place finisher. Others that followed were an ATM dispensing cash, a steak sizzling on a grill and a soda being popped and poured. In all of these cases, it didn't take a Mad Man to invent the sounds, infuse them with meaning and then play them over and over until the subjects internalized them. Rather, the sounds already had meaning and thus triggered a cascade of reactions: hunger, thirst, happy anticipation. "Cultural messages that get into your nervous system are very common and make you behave certain ways," says neuroscientist Read Montague of Baylor College of Medicine. Advertisers who fail to understand that pay a price. Lindstrom admits to being mystified by TV ads that give viewers close-up food-porn shots of meat on a grill but accompany that with generic jangly guitar music. One of his earlier brain studies showed that numerous regions, including the insula and orbital frontal cortex, jump into action when such discordance occurs, trying to make sense of it. TV advertisers aren't the only ones who may start putting sound to greater use. Retailers are also catching on. The 0101 department store in Japan, for example, has been designed as a series of soundscapes, playing different sound effects such as children at play, birdsongs and lapping water in the sportswear, fragrance and formal-wear sections. Lindstrom is consulting with clients about employing a similar strategy in European supermarkets, piping the sound of percolating coffee or fizzing soda into the beverage department or that of a baby cooing into the baby-food aisle. None of this means that advertisers just have to turn the audio dials and consumers will come running. Indeed, sometimes they flee. In the early years of mainstream cell-phone use, the Nokia ringtone was recognized by 42% of people in the U.K.--and soon became widely loathed. That, Lindstrom says, was partly because so few users practiced cell-phone etiquette and the blasted things kept going off in movie theaters. The Microsoft start-up sound has taken on similarly negative associations, because people so often hear it when they're rebooting after their computer has crashed. In these cases, manufacturers themselves must reboot by changing the offending sound slightly or replacing it entirely. If history is any indication, marketers will keep getting more manipulative, and the storm of commercial noise will become more focused. Even then, there may be hope: Lindstrom's testing shows that people respond to a sound better when it's subtler. If nothing else, smart marketers may at least keep the volume low. Neural Advertising What new ad trickery awaits? Find out at time.com/addictive_sounds

NBC Today Show: Personal Branding Part I

Look at Me Now! Personal Branding on TODAY Show (Part 1) New York City. In a world growing increasingly more obsessed by celebrities, we tend to overlook one important fact: as individuals, celebrities have pretty much mastered the art of turning themselves into powerful, eye-catching and memorable personal brands. Think Madonna, Paris Hilton, Brad Pitt � even Barack Obama. What can we learn from them? In Part 1 of this riveting TODAY Show segment, Lindstrom concludes that by mimicking some of the fundamental rules employed by celebrities, we have the power as individuals to develop ourselves into a influential personal brand. To find out what these rules are, and other essential tips on personal branding, play this video.

NBC Today Show: Personal Branding Part II

Look at Me Now! Personal Branding on TODAY Show (Part 2) New York City. Part 2 of the TODAY Show interview on Personal Branding with Martin Lindstrom takes a turn for the decidedly interesting as he partakes in a New York City street experiment to prove 2 points: Firstly, it is possible to build a viable personal brand in only 2 hours. Secondly, just exuding �star quality� can get us noticed in a crowd. The question is, why, when achieving stand-out status, are people (suddenly) so willing to engage with you? Lindstrom goes deep into the mystique of brand auras, probing the how�s and why�s required for brand fame � instant and long-lasting � and how we can apply these to our own lives, particularly in times of economic stress.

Burger King, Carl's Jr. pull out oldest ad trick in book: Sex: USA Today Dec 22, 2009

By Bruce Horovitz, USA TODAY Call it the battle of the virtual burger babes. In one corner, there's Kim Kardashian, the sexy cable star, eager to chat via webcam with Carl's Jr. customers on "The Ultimate Salad Lunch Date" at www.facebook.com/carlsjr. In the other corner, there's Burger King's "Shower Babe," an anonymous 20-year-old from South London. Folks can watch and hear her online while she showers in a bikini and sings. Viewers are asked to vote for what song she'll sing � and what bikini she'll wear � the next day. One "seriously lucky" person in the U.K. who visits the website, www.singingintheshower.co.uk, will win a breakfast date with Shower Babe. This may be the virtual future of fast-food advertising. Never mind that BK is pitching breakfast items and Carl's is pitching salads with these promos. Chains such as BK and Carl's, which squarely target teens and twentysomethings, find that the triple combo of hot babes, fast food and webcams work well to draw hard-to-reach teen guy prime customers to their sites and, ultimately, into stores. But critics abound. "It's as if we're back in the 1950s the way pop culture portrays women, but with New Age technology," says Terry O'Neill, president of the National Organization for Women. Martin Lindstrom, a marketing consultant, questions whether sex in ads really sells. While viewers are quick to recall sexual imagery, they mostly forget what brand is behind the ad, he says. "What does sex really have to do with burgers?" That's not the point, says Andy Puzder, CEO of Carl's Jr. "You can say 1,000 times that you have a great burger and no one will listen to you, but if you put a beautiful woman in the ad, they will." Consumers who buy new Carl's salads between Dec. 30 and Jan. 12 will be given a special code granting access to ask Kardashian questions during the Jan. 13 virtual lunch date. No code is required, however, to watch the event via streaming video. The BK site advises fans to "watch our shower babe shake her bits to the hits at 9:30 a.m. every morning." The campaign, which began Dec. 8, ends on Thursday. The site has had 70,000 unique visitors. "While we know (it) won't appeal to every consumer," BK spokeswoman Michelle Miguelez says, "we do know that it does resonate with our key male superfans in the U.K."

Live models spice up New York window display: LA Times December 4, 2009

A clothing and accessories retailer is drawing traffic -- and controversy -- with two women lounging around in skimpy clothes in a window on Fifth Avenue. By Tina Susman December 4, 2009 Reporting from New York It's what all young women do in their spare time: lounge about in frilly underwear, fiddle with their rhinestone bellybutton rings and prance on the sofa, oblivious to passers-by peeping through uncovered windows. Well, not quite, but the provocatively clad women going about their business on Fifth Avenue aren't typical. They are an advertisement for the clothing and accessories retailer XOXO, whose live window display featuring two models -- friends from Venice, Calif. -- engaged in mundane activities is a megahit this shopping season. "Are they real?" one man asked incredulously, whipping his head around toward the window Tuesday as Helene Traasavik and Niki Huey sipped coffee and dabbled on their laptops while wearing lacy lingerie, short robes (open in the front) and slippers. "I came all the way from Queens to see it," said another man who gave his name only as Tin. Whether the display will translate to a permanent boon for XOXO remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: It's drawing more attention than tiny reindeer and Santa's sleigh ever would. Since "the show," as locals call it, opened Nov. 27, traffic to XOXO.com has increased 35%, said Erin Haggerty of the Kellwood Co. -- which designs, manufactures and markets goods that include XOXO's flirty, feminine fashions. Some of the increase is due to Black Friday and Cyber Monday surges, Haggerty said. But some no doubt can be attributed to the buzz the advertisement has created in a city famous for its residents' ability to barrel down the sidewalks while ignoring the street theater around them. At the corner of 38th Street and Fifth Avenue, nearly everyone stops to stare. Amused strangers debate everything from the appropriateness to the point of it all. "We have to approach things in nontraditional ways," said Carol Powley, Kellwood's senior marketing director. "This is a look into the first apartment, if you will, of an XOXO girl." There is a powder-blue sofa, a white shag rug, racks of clothes, shoes on the floor and pictures on the wall. There also is a full-length mirror in front of which Traasavik and Huey preen as they wriggle in and out of different outfits before fascinated onlookers. Those moments, however, are rare. The models spend most of their six hours in the window every day in lingerie, sipping coffee, chatting and checking e-mails on their laptops. Yes, they have WiFi in there. All that's missing to make it perfectly homey, it seems, is a cat. And curtains. With more people than ever shopping online, the spectacle is a surefire way to grab consumers who otherwise might not notice store windows. And the fact that prime Manhattan space was available is a reflection of New York's struggling economy. The space on the buzzing corner used to be occupied by a CompUSA store, which closed. This week, neither cold rain nor frigid winds stopped people from standing transfixed in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows once Traasavik and Huey sauntered into view at noon. Most of the lingering men would not give their full names, and they scattered like snowflakes in the wind when a TV crew turned its camera in their direction. But all of them had opinions. "I wouldn't otherwise look at their website, so this was a way of getting my attention," said an electrician named Chris, adding that his wife might like the blue booties on one model's feet. "I wouldn't have noticed them on a mannequin, but on her legs I did. Maybe now I'll buy them." Patrick Walsh Jr., who runs an animation studio in the neighborhood, stopped by with his colleagues Gary Stanton and Brendan Murphy to see what the fuss was about. "I passed by this like three times yesterday and didn't know what the product was," Murphy said. "It seems like they're selling underwear," Walsh said. "Or phone sex." All agreed that the display was mild compared with what one might see in Amsterdam's red-light district -- and many female passers-by shared that view. "It's cute. It sure got my attention, but it would help if they put on more clothes so we knew what the items looked like," Dee Sealey said. Nobody has formally complained, according to police spokesman Martin Speechley. The biggest problem seems to be the ruckus that ensues each time the models stand up, drop their robes and move toward the clothing rack -- a sign that it's time to shimmy into some clothes and then take them off again. Men press close to the windows. They wave. They hold up signs. One lifted his shirt and pressed his bare chest against the glass. It's hopeless, though. Huey and Traasavik, both professional models, have no trouble ignoring what's going on outside. "We're kind of used to being stared at," Huey said good-naturedly as she and Traasavik sat on the sofa after slipping on stilettos and leg-baring outfits. "It's so laid-back, it's almost like not working," Traasavik said. The hardest part might be lounging about while looking perfect. "Because we get dolled up all the time for work, we don't like to do that in our down time," she added. The display will run through Sunday, and advertising guru Martin Lindstrom said that no matter what the short-term sales impact is, the buzz surrounding the campaign guaranteed long-term benefits for XOXO. "Sex does not sell, but what sells is the controversy around it, and that's what is happening here," Lindstrom said. "XOXO has generated brand awareness." There's just one problem, he said: How to follow this up with an equally buzz-worthy campaign. Because "people will expect to be even more shocked next time."

Inside Look into Consumer Behaviour: Fox News 4 December 2009

In this Fox Business new clips, Martin discusses consumer behaviour when exposed to neuromarketing like smell, sound, larger shopping trolleys in the supermarket and so on. He gives examples on how and why different product sales go up or down when the retailers adjust the so called somatic markers. He explains also how consumers' feelings and emotions have a crucial impact on which decisions to take when they go shopping.

What Price Fashion?: Vogue Magazine September 2009

With today's shoppers looking for real value when they drop their dollars, designers are trying to keep quality high and costs low. Teri Agins reports. Now that the fall styles are in, starring the season's sequined minidresses, streamlined peacoats, and those towering gladiators, scores of anxious shoppers scrutinizing the shiny new merchandise are wondering aloud, �Is this really worth $800?� In the weeks following the great economic meltdown of 2008, there was a bonanza of unexpected bargains ripe for the picking: Racks of $1,000 designer frocks were consigned to liquidation for as much as 70 percent off well before Thanksgiving. Stuck with an excess of seasonal stock, shell-shocked retailers had no other choice, erasing most of their profits along the way. Bloodied but unbowed, fashion houses large and small pressed the reset button this year. For months, the trend that buyers have been buzzing about is value. The new proposition put everybody on guard and drove prices down by as much as 20 percent at labels like Dolce & Gabbana and Moschino. Designers also dreamed up sharply priced novelties to balance out their collections. For example, Jil Sander's Raf Simons turned out exquisite $1,300 dresses; at Givenchy, Riccardo Tisci added distinctive cotton blouses for as little as $440. Value now depends on conferring the truest bang for the buck. Still, standouts like Lanvin's $2,800 black sleeveless belted sheath remain on the market alongside sublime $175 wool-silk-jersey tanks trimmed in python-embossed pigskin from 3.1 Phillip Lim. More than in the past, �luxury is about something that is special, that has a real authenticity. It isn't so mass produced,� says Julie Gilhart, fashion director at Barneys New York. It can also be found in �a beautiful handwoven scarf from Bolivia that sells for under $300,� she says. �We're moving into an era of transparency, when designers are being held more responsible for what they do.� Long before the recession hit, prices of high fashion had spiraled out of control, fueled in recent years by the rising cost of imported fabrics and labor from Europe. But even when the good times rolled, overpriced fashion no longer made any sense. Amid a declining demand for clothes and accessories, the biggest challenge for fashion houses is to better justify why things cost what they do. The luxury industry, in particular, �needs to arm the consumer with the rational argument, as well as the emotional argument, why they need to buy that Louis Vuitton bag,� observes Martin Lindstrom, marketing expert and author of Buyology: Truth and Lies About Why We Buy. When it comes to fashion nowadays, he insists, �there has to be that practical dimension.� Perhaps no designer lives by the rule of practicality more than Phillip Lim. The 36-year-old designer's mantra: original design, packed with fine details�hand-stitching, bound buttonholes, gazar inner facings�at sensible prices. (A head-turning feather-and-sequin cocktail dress retails for $950.) He and business partner Wen Zhou never set their sights on couture but on beautiful, affordable clothes. Their Manhattan garment-district workroom is a model of discipline and restraint. They know the techniques and shortcuts that can give a piece the right wow factor while keeping retail prices reasonable. �The big secret here is that there is no waste,� Lim says. He hasn't fallen for the folly of fashion because he knows that overproduction and overexperimentation with samples �burns up all your margins.� He designs all women's, men's, and children's collections with only three assistants and no stylists; the fewer cooks in the kitchen, the more he keeps from being second-guessed. �We produce only enough to cover the retail orders we get,� he says. On the front end, Lim painstakingly maps out the collections�a mix of half new and half repeat styles. Of the 240 pieces he created for fall 2009, he wound up manufacturing them all�a perfect batting average�which �is pretty much the way he does it every season,� says Zhou. Amid declining demand, the biggest challenge for fashion houses is to better justify why things cost what they do How can Lim estimate with such precision? �I am merchandising and designing the line at the same time,� he explains. Lim appears to be from the same school as Lindstrom, who maintains that not only are the strongest consumer products fashionable, their many functions justify their worth. Case in point: a beautifully tailored $650 shadow-striped black wool blazer, which is actually two garments in one. Zip on its sequined lapels and it turns into a cocktail tuxedo jacket. Delightful extras like an inside breast pocket and underarm fabric dress shields are features you don't often find�even on $2,000 jackets. It comes as no surprise that retail buyers haven't been pressuring Lim to lower his prices. Instead, he says, �stores have been coming in and saying, �I can't believe that your prices aren't higher.� So they are ordering more.� Proenza Schouler opened its fall runway show with a color-block topper with billowy sleeves, �a fantastic piece that was only $1,200, ordinarily an opening price point for our coats,� says Shirley Cook, chief executive officer. �We were superconscious about adding pieces that were versatile, that people could wear during the day.� Already moving briskly since it arrived in stores in July: the �very best skinny stretch-twill pant you've ever seen�and it's $550.� At the highest levels of the fashion pyramid, the world of small-scale production (by the dozens, not the thousands) and limited distribution, designers have no choice but to keep prices high, which is the only way these brands can deliver the best fabrics and the highest quality of craftsmanship. There will always be an affluent and discerning set unfazed by high prices, who prize top-tier exclusivity from the likes of Isabel Toledo, Azzedine Ala�a, and Lanvin. But even those designers are conscious of today's value mind-set. Alber Elbaz has always had an enthusiastic audience for his day dresses, which can reach $4,000. But even he agrees that Lanvin has to �lower our prices.� Earlier this year he sprang into action, personally calling suppliers and factories seeking to shave costs. He also markets the 22 Faubourg label, which includes several pieces under $1,000. Julie Macklowe, a hedge-fund-portfolio manager, attests that she has bought less this year and is �putting more thought into what I buy.� Yet she didn't balk at splurging on the red Oscar de la Renta evening dress she wore to the Met's Costume Institute Gala. �It was a must-have, the only one in my size, that I will have forever,� she says. �It was not an impulse purchase.� With loyal clients like Macklowe, the house of Oscar de la Renta is sanguine about its approach to the current retail climate. �We still have the $10,000 and $12,000 evening gowns, all the things that we've always done,� says Alex Bolen, chief executive. But the designer has expanded his resort collection to include lower-priced pieces that arrive in stores in December. �We have sharpened our pencil when it comes to the cost of fabric and labor for details like embroidery, to come up with the best value,� Bolen says. �We have opening price points that are well under $2,000, when the competition is in the high $2,000s or around $3,000. We are using the same silk fabrics and detailing, but we are also expanding more into cottons and silk blends. This is the moment when we are putting as much on the hanger as we can.�

ET couldn't resist the lure of product placement: The Times 19 September 2009

Thoughts for the week: ET couldn't resist the lure of product placement. And neither will you. Daniel Finkelstein Back at the beginning of the 1980s, the Mars Corporation made a big mistake. It was approached by the director Steven Spielberg, who said he was making a film, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. Spielberg explained that there was a scene in the movie in which his hero, the young Elliott, discovers the creature hiding in the woods. He lures him out with sweets, laid in a trail leading to his house. Would Mars like to pay for the sweets to be M&M's? Mars replied that, no, it wouldn't. Hershey's gave a different reply. So when Elliott drops his sweets, it is Reese's Pieces that act as bait for ET. The result? Within a week of the film's opening, sales of Reese's Pieces tripled. And more than 800 cinemas across the United States began to stock the sweet for the first time. Something similar happened to the sales of Ray-Ban sunglasses after Tom Cruise wore them in Top Gun. This week, the Culture Secretary, Ben Bradshaw, announced a plan to allow product placement - the appearance of branded goods during programmes, for use, say, as props - on television. It is obvious why TV companies want this. But what about advertisers? Does product placement work? The ET story seems to wrap things up. Yes, of course it works. But Martin Lindstrom, who recounts the ET tale in his fascinating book Buyology, argues that it isn't as simple as that. Lindstrom's interest, and the focus of his book, is what he calls neuromarketing. Not content with the traditional polling techniques - the survey, the focus group - neuromarketers want to look inside your head. Literally. With the use of brain-scanning equipment, subjects have been tested, for instance, for their reaction to film trailers. A test of political reactions using campaign footage suggested the potency of fear as a determining factor in elections. The results persuaded the researchers that the technique could be used to design campaign ads. Anyone concerned that politicians already use too much polling to guide their choices should note that the polling obsession might one day seem quaint. So what does neuromarketing reveal about product placement? Using brain scans, Lindstrom tested reactions to the TV programme American Idol. The programme featured three brands. The first was Coca-Cola. The show was saturated with the stuff. In front of each judge was a cup, the judges and contestants sat on chairs designed to look like Coke bottles, the contestants were filmed in a room painted Coke red, and so on. Then there was Cingular Wireless (now AT&T), the only mobile phone carrier, as the host continually pointed out, that allowed viewers to text in their votes and whose logo was continually featured. The final sponsor, Ford, spent a fortune, but on traditional advertising spots specially designed for the programme (featuring its music, say, with contestants congregating around a Ford car). The Lindstrom study attempted to discover whether the programme helped viewers to remember the logo of the featured companies more than those of the companies not featured. The results were good news for Coke. Its product placement really seemed to work, planting the logo even more firmly in our brains. Cingular did well, too, but nowhere near as well as Coke. What about Ford? It wasted its money. Lindstrom notes that "in its post-programme test, we discovered that after viewing the shows, our subjects actually remembered less about the Ford commercials than they had before they entered the study". They were drowned out by Coke. How do neuromarketers account for this? Well, first, it is clear that traditional advertising has difficulty making an impact. By the time you are a pensioner you will have seen something in the region of two million TV commercials. If you are an average viewer, you will be able to recall about three of them. Product placement, by contrast, can work. But it needs to be done with conviction. Lindstrom's theory - but it is, in my view, just a theory - is that it is integration with the narrative that makes the crucial difference. Reese's Pieces were part of the plot of ET. Ray-Bans were a big part of Tom Cruise's cool image. And in American Idol Coke's brand was weaved into the show. That was why, even though mentions were not as explicit, it did better (or so the author of Buyology suggests) than Cingular. When product placement comes to your TV set, you are going to notice it. Because if you don't, it won't work.

Left in the Flat-Screen Dust: Washington Post 19 September 2009

Left in the Flat-Screen Dust: Old-Model TVs Are So Toxic, You Can't Give 'Em Away. Literally. Michael S. Rosenwald; Washington Post Staff Writer This land is your land, this land is clunker land. From clunker cars to Jonathan Carroll's kitchen table, where a 20-inch Philips TV sits unplugged awaiting someone -- anyone -- to fire it up again before next week's season premiere of "Dancing With the Stars." The TV works fine, Carroll says in a Craigslist ad. Only $40. Just a few years old. Perfect for a dorm room. Yet nobody has responded to the offer. "Not even the scammers," Carroll said. "They don't bother." Similar ads are piling up: "32" Panasonic TV 2000. Perfect working condition. Like New." And "19 inch tv - $19." Alas, these televisions don't have much going for them. In technological terms, they use cathode-ray tubes -- CRTs. In layman's language, they are clunkers. Like Formica countertops displaced by granite, they no longer seem sleek. Like gas-guzzling autos surpassed by hybrids, they can no longer claim the cutting edge. They are fully functional dinosaurs in a high-def age. They just aren't, like Carroll's new TV, flat. "It's amazing that nobody wants a perfectly good TV," Carroll said. "It even has a remote." America's unquenchable craving, even in a recession, for the latest and greatest in electronics, and the nation's switch to digital television broadcasting in June, have combined to send consumers racing for flat-screen TVs -- and has made them anxious to rid their homes of their tube-based relics. Carroll and others worry that nobody will take their old TVs, not even for free, and local governments are scrambling to stop the rejects, laden with lead, from being dumped in landfills or poor Asian countries. "Our society consumes a lot of electronics, whether it be computers, cellphones, TiVos, stereos or TVs, and these days, these things have a very limited life span," said Peter Karasik, who, as manager of Montgomery County's transfer station has a canary-in-the-coal-mine view of the country's electronics fashions. In no segment of the electronics industry is the new supplanting the old faster than for boob tubes. Last year, 91 percent of the 37 million TVs sold in the United States had flat screens, according to the market research firm DisplaySearch. The number of tube TVs sold has fallen spectacularly, from 15.6 million in 2006 to 3.1 million last year. Asking a Best Buy salesman where the tube TVs are is a fail-safe way to induce giggles. The chain doesn't sell them anymore. As new TVs enter the home, many people hide the old ones in basements, garages or closets. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 99 million TVs were stored this way two years ago. But many TVs are simply tossed. In 2007, 27 million units were discarded, and 77 percent of them were tossed out with the trash (most of the rest are recycled). Responding to potential landfill contamination, 18 states, including Virginia and Maryland, require manufacturers to help pay for electronics recycling. Montgomery County's recycling program took in 122 tons of TVs in July, more than double the load in July of last year. "Ever since the human being appeared, we've been hard-wired to hunt for better and bigger," said Martin Lindstrom, a marketing guru and author of "Buyology." "And that makes us think, 'I don't want to end up being the last person on planet Earth left with a CRT.' " Carroll executed a succession plan in his District apartment: New flat screen is installed in living room, living room tube moves to the bedroom, the little Philips in the bedroom goes to Craigslist. Across the country, clunker pathways vary according to size of home and shape of family. Some TVs shift from bedrooms to basements to garages. Others migrate to college dorms. "It's the TV shuffle," Carroll said. Things get trickier when the old TV is leaving the family entirely. Andrea Johnson and her fiance have found it difficult to get rid of her 20-inch Toshiba. She tried to sell it on Craigslist and got some responses, but then nobody showed to pick it up. Johnson, of Silver Spring, turned to hawking the TV through Facebook. That has generated a few bites from friends. "I actually feel better about doing it this way since I know it will go to a good home," she said. Carroll offered his TV free on Craigslist and got some interest, but no solid taker. If nothing clicks for Carroll and Johnson, their options include the dump, which neither prefers, and Goodwill, which still accepts donations of TVs if they are digital-ready. Goodwill no longer takes models lacking a coaxial cable connection. And there is recycling. In Montgomery, where Johnson lives, the government pays e-Structors, an Elkridge company, 7.2 cents a pound to pick up clunker TVs and strip them for parts. The recession has driven commodity prices so low that the material inside the TV is worth less than the cost of recycling it. Several electronics companies, including Toshiba, offer free take-back programs. Johnson could take her Toshiba to one of four recycling centers in Maryland. Carroll, with a Philips, isn't as fortunate. The company has no recycling program. Best Buy accepts clunker drop-offs at its stores, and its Geek Squad subsidiary will haul away an old TV when installing a new flat-screen. Best Buy Geeks Brian Parsons and Denver Mowat arrived at Anton Garcia's home in Bowie this week to install a 46-inch Sony flat-screen and home theater system. "Here goes my back," Mowat predicted as he picked up Garcia's 30-inch clunker, the latest in a long series. Parsons replied: "You're 10 years younger than me. I don't want to hear it." The Geeks removed the clunker without injury and plopped it on their truck to begin its journey to a recycling center. The Geeks returned a tad out of breath, set the 46-inch beauty on a stand and wired the room for surround sound. Time to test the new gear: In went "Mission Impossible 3." They switched off the lights. There was Tom Cruise. There was the sweat on his face. Garcia and the Geeks watched. And kept watching. Finally, after it appeared nobody was going to peel his eyes off the screen, Garcia delivered the buzz kill: "Well, I don't want to keep you guys any longer."

Bloomberg : Interview about Buyology

Martin Lindstrom explains the technology used in scanning 2000 brains in the Buyology research project. He discusses how consumers are seduced by fear and why sex doesn�t sell anymore. Finally he discloses that subliminal marketing still works after being banned for years, and how this knowledge is used by many marketers including those in the tobacco industry.

NBC Today Show: Kids Inc Part I

We all know how kids are bombarded by marketing - but how does this translate into conscious recognition and decision making at the cash register? Watch this just released Today Morning Show series: Kids INC Todays Brand Savvy Tweens - as Martin Lindstrom works with a group of tweens to reveal their knowledge on brands - with some startling results. This program first aired on 11th August 2009 at 7:43am EST

NBC TODAY Show: Kids Inc Part 2

In this Part 2 of Kids Inc - Martin Lindstrom learn more about how the parents secretly observes the research and witness their reaction to their kids� savvy-ness - and their shock at the reasons behind some of their brand choices. (If you�re looking for solutions you�ll like the ending!) This program first aired on 12th August 2009 at 7:45am EST

Fox Strategy Room: Marketing Gurus discussing Psychology and the Economy

Martin Lindstrom and John Tantillo debate why people in the USA are at a U-turn, going from bigger to smaller cars, from fast food to healthier food and from carelessness on climate changes to awareness on CO2 emission, windmills and solar energy. In all matters it is important to have political backup, no matter whether the question is financial support to the automobile industry or environmental sustainability. The two gurus also argue on the difference between Apple and Microsoft fans.

ABC News: Dominos Pizza Disaster

April 14 Domino Pizza witnessed a 10% drop of their share price in only one day - the reason why was a video released on You Tube - produced by two staff-members playing with the food. Watch this interview to learn about Lindstrom's advice to Dominos Pizza challenges. ABC News NOW - and the segment: Dominos Pizza Disaster went on air May 5th 2009 at 10.30AM EST.

FOX Business: Rebranding Ford and Chrysler

View the FOX Business interview with Martin Lindstrom on Fiat's recent acquisition of Ford and how the new brand alliance is to handle the re-introduction of Fiat in to the North American Market. FOX Business went live May 5th 2009 with the segment Rebranding Ford at 9.30AM EST

Time Magazine: Martin Lindstrom selected by TIME 100 - by Chris Anderson

You know the old saw about half our advertising being wasted but we don't know which half? Well, now we do, thanks to Martin Lindstrom, a Danish brand consultant and the author of the book Buyology, who took a brave leap into neuroscience to figure out why we buy � or don't. Using functional MRI and other brain-scanning techniques, he went beyond the flimflam of the Mad Men and measured the minds of more than 2,000 consumers, all observed under the influence of marketing. What Lindstrom, 39, found was that many ads are not only ineffective but also have a sort of reverse effect. Huge health warnings on cigarette packs may actually encourage smokers to light up because they trigger a mental echo of the desirable product. Ford spent $26 million sponsoring American Idol, yet Lindstrom found that consumers came to think less of the company, mostly because its ads interrupted the show. It was in 2003 that Lindstrom started reading about brain-imaging tools and realized they could be applied to marketing. He raised research money, brought scientists on board and helped recruit subjects. He's one of the first brand experts to understand the biology of consumer desire. When you look past what people say and measure what their brains say, you realize the subconscious controls purchasing. Pepsi, for example, always won the Pepsi Challenge, but Coke won in the marketplace, because it's not about which tastes better but about which we think tastes better. That's an emotional reaction, not a rational (or even gustatory) one, and the brain scans reveal how it happens. As a generation grows up online, the tools of persuasion will have to be as measurable as the medium. Google does it with clicks and links, and Lindstrom does it with neurons and blood flow. Somewhere between the eye and the mouse finger is the secret to selling. Anderson is editor in chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail Appeared in the TIME 100 edition of 2009 on stands Friday 30th of April 2009

Today Show PART 1: More for your Money?

Martin appeared on NBC's Today show to discuss the question everyone has been asking thorugh this recession: 'Are you actually getting more for your money, or are you being manipulated into thinking you are getting a better deal?' Appeared on TODAY SHOW on March 3rd, 2009

Today Show PART 2: Inside the brain of a shopper

The TODAY show teams up with Martin Lindstrom, chairman of the neuromarketing company Buyology Inc and author of the book Buyology, to go inside the brain of a shopper. Kelly is strapped up with an electrode cap and then sent off to buy. How she performs is astounding. Appeared on TODAY SHOW on March 4th, 2009

ABC News: Buyers Beware

The tough financial times have led retailers to try every trick in the book to get a sale. ABC teams up with Martin Lindstrom to tell you about the sneaky tricks luring you to buy more.

Today Show: Why you buy what you buy

Martin discusses how marketers use subliminal advertising in a new way to bolster their brand recognition. Read more about the Parade Magazine article mentioned in this clip by visiting our Archive Page Appeared on TODAY on Thursday 8/1/09

CNN: Subliminal ad tricks

What drives us as consumers to buy? What causes some marketing efforts to work... and some to fail. Martin Lindstrom, author of 'Buyology,' talks about how our unconscious mind influence what we buy, and how placing your brand out of context can cause a marketing effort to fail.

ABC View from the Bay Interview: ABC View from the Bay Interview

Does sex sell? What do religion and ritual have in common with successful advertising? Can subliminal advertising really influence our behavior? What effect, if any do health warnings on cigarette packs have on the consumer? Martin Lindstrom explains how most are lured to buy, even though they may not even know it. Lindstrom answers the question "Can subliminal advertising really influence our behaviour?". VIEW FROM THE BAY was broadcast live on Wednesday, November 12, 2008 at 4:05 PM